Abstract
The delivery centres and business warehouses increased year after year in 1960s owing to the rapid economic growth in Japan.
However, this trend somewhat changed thereafter.
Because of the depression in the early half of 1970s, the number of business warehouses decreased as compared with the expansion of the scale of delivery centres.
In the field of the delivery centres the intensive unification and the independent management of merchandise have promoted in order to increase the efficiency of the marchandise circulation system. As a result, the number of delivery centres have increased. On the other hand, as for the business warehouses, the stock of commodities on shippers side decreased due to the slump of business, thereby the availability has remarkably dropped.
As to the location of the delivery centre, it depends largely on the road situation, and the major items handled are occupied by such commodities as machineries, furnitures and papers which are relatively in large quantity to deliver and in large volume. These business managers are changing themselves more and more from a wholesaler to a maker with the development of a mass production.
Moreover, an exclusive company appeared for storage and distribution or sales in the same line of a maker after the year of 1965.
Most of the delivery centres were moved from Nagoya city, and a regional differentiation of the business department and the delivery department are remarkably seen. This trend was influenced by the increase of flow of materials handled and the excessive density of cities.
The region of delivery is mainly local, mostly limitted in central Japan.
Nevertheless, the head offices of the delivery centres are mostly situated in Tokyo or Osaka, and seldom in Nagoya. The delivery centres which are aiming for the distribution to all over Japan are few and they have nothing to do with the factories scattered in Komaki. This means that the large plants in Komaki is making a mass production on order for a large demander, therefore they have not much necessity to rely upon the delivery centre.
